Forest Service plans land sale

summit daily news ^ | February 8, 2006 | BOB BERWYN

[lewislynn]

Hopefully, some of the money will make it to rural schools.

And when both the land and the money are gone...then what will rural schools do?

[girlangler]

Not familiar with the case you are referring to. Can you tell me more?

Are you referring to the case a few months ago where a municipality took someone's property to put up a shopping mall or something?

[george76]

They bought 2,000,000 acres recently from American citizens.

Now, they are proposing to sell 200,000 acres, nationwide. These unrelated acres are inaccessable ( inholdings already surrounded by private land, etc. )

The would be a net gain of 1,800,000 acres (since 1990). Thus the public owned land is expanding, not declining.

"The national forest system encompasses about 193 million acres nationwide, and the agency doesn't expect a net loss of lands due to other ongoing acquisition programs."

Hopefully, the rural communities and rural schools will not die. They have been under attack for many decades.

[lewislynn]

The would be a net gain of 1,800,000 acres (since 1990). Thus the public owned land is expanding, not declining.

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Hopefully, the rural communities and rural schools will not die. They have been under attack for many decades.

Be careful what you wish for, yours might be next.

[marsh2]

forester - the disposal list is the raw list. They have not yet vetted the list for archaeological sites and other features of interest. I have asked them to identify those with mineral claims or grazing allotments. I want to make sure that those areas are either retained to protect those historic split estate uses, or that the rights to those uses are preserved upon sale. That is what happened with BLM land - they wanted to get rid of the split estate lands and wash those interests out through land ownership transfer. We worked out a right of first refusal type of agreement.

This is not the final list. The comment period will be used to vet those that are ok to sell. The hunters will oppose any sale. They are suffering from some severe access issues.

Part of this Presidential initiative is to increase timber sale targets. Because the funds will not be stable, it is likely that the USFS will contract out some of the sale prep work.

As for the comment on schools, this area of California has historically been dotted with small isolated commenuities with small schools. My kids attended a two room elementary school with 40 children. The fifth - eighth grade was in one room and K-4th in the other.

For instance, along the Klamath, towns are separated by a half an hour to an hour drive. There is a large tribal presence in some areas, and others are populated with fifth generation pioneer families that aren't budging. Yes, the school attendance has dropped a bit, but there are still young families in these communities in need of a school. Distance learning helps get expertise to some of the remote areas.

[george76]

[proud_yank]

Tell that to another federal agency, the Tennessee Valley Authority, which is currently selling off land to developers, land it TOOK from families here decades ago.

No kidding? How does that work there? When the TVA acquired land from people, were they paid market value for it?

I understand what eminent domain is, and the difference between taking land for a highway vs. for condos, but that is about the extent of my knowledge on the subject.